Byron Pitts (born October 21, 1960) is an American journalist and author, working for
ABC News
ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...
as co-anchor for the network's late night news program, ''
Nightline''. Until March 2013, he served as a chief national correspondent for ''
The CBS Evening News
The ''CBS Evening News'' is the flagship evening television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The ''CBS Evening News'' is a daily evening broadcast featuring news reports, feature s ...
'' and contributed regularly to ''
60 Minutes''.
Early life
Pitts was born October 21, 1960, to Clarice and William Pitts in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
.
He grew up in a working-class neighborhood, raised by a single mother.
In his memoir, Pitts discussed that he had a debilitating
stutter as a child and was "
functionally illiterate
Functional illiteracy consists of reading and writing skills that are inadequate "to manage daily living and employment tasks that require reading skills beyond a basic level". Those who read and write only in a language other than the predominant ...
" until about age 12. He attended
Archbishop Curley High School
Archbishop Curley High School is a Roman Catholic boys' high school in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore in the United States, within the City of Baltimore. It is affiliated with the Conventual Franciscan religious order. It is the broth ...
, an all-boys
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
high school in Baltimore. He went on to
Ohio Wesleyan University, but spent summers in
Apex, North Carolina
Apex () is a town in Wake County, North Carolina, United States. At its southern border, Apex encompasses the community of Friendship. In 1994, the downtown area was designated a historic district, and the Apex train depot, built in 1867, is desi ...
.
[Menconi, David ] He graduated in 1982 with a bachelor's degree in journalism and speech communication.
Career
Pitts has always wanted to be a journalist. It was his goal, since he was 18 years old, to be a correspondent on the CBS show ''60 Minutes''.
He interned at
WTVD
WTVD (channel 11) is a television station licensed to Durham, North Carolina, United States, broadcasting the ABC network to the Research Triangle area. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, it maintains ...
in
Durham, North Carolina. After graduation, he bounced around to various television stations on the East Coast. During 1983–84, he reported and served as weekend sports anchor at
WNCT-TV
WNCT-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Greenville, North Carolina, United States, serving Eastern North Carolina as an affiliate of CBS and The CW Plus. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station maintains studios on South ...
in
Greenville, North Carolina He was a military reporter for
WAVY-TV
WAVY-TV (channel 10) is a television station licensed to Portsmouth, Virginia, United States, serving the Hampton Roads area as an affiliate of NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Virginia Beach–licensed Fox affiliate WVBT (cha ...
in
Portsmouth, Virginia (1984–86) and a reporter for
WESH-TV Wesh or WESH may refer to:
*Wesh in Spin Boldak, Kandahar province, Afghanistan
* Wesh–Chaman border crossing one of the major international border crossings between Afghanistan and Pakistan
* Darrell Wesh (1992), Haitian-American sprinter
* Mar ...
Orlando
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures re ...
(1986–88). He moved across the Florida peninsula to
Tampa to be a reporter and substitute
anchor
An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek ἄ ...
for
WFLA-TV
WFLA-TV (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Tampa, Florida, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for the Tampa Bay area. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside St. Petersburg–licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate WTTA (chann ...
(1988–89). After a brief stint there, he moved to Boston as a special assignment reporter for
WCVB-TV
WCVB-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Hearst Television. The station's studios are located on TV Place (off Gould Street near the I-95/ MA 128/Highland Avenue ...
(1989–94). His last local job was as a general assignment reporter for
WSB-TV
WSB-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is the flagship television property of locally based Cox Media Group, which has owned the station since its inception, and is sister to ...
in Atlanta,
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
(1994–96).
Pitts then moved to Washington, D.C. as a correspondent for ''
CBS Newspath'', the 24-hour affiliate news service of
CBS News (1997–98). He was named a CBS News correspondent in May 1998, and was based in the Miami (1998–99) and Atlanta (1999–2001) bureaus and eventually New York City in January 2001.
Pitts was one of CBS News' lead reporters during the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
and won a national
Emmy Award for his coverage. As an embedded reporter covering the Iraq War, he was recognized for his work under fire within minutes of the fall of the
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...
statue. Other major stories covered by Pitts include
Hurricane Katrina, the war in Afghanistan, the military buildup in
Kuwait
Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...
, the Florida fires, the
Elian Gonzalez Elian or Elián (Spanish) or Élian (French) can refer to:
People
*Saint Elian (Syria) (died 284)
**Church of Saint Elian (Arabic: كنيسة مار اليان, Kaneesat Mar Elian) is a church in Homs, Syria
** Monastery of St. Elian a Syriac Catho ...
story, the Florida Presidential recount, the mudslides in Central America and the refugee crisis in
Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
.
Pitts other awards include a national Emmy Award for his coverage of the Chicago train wreck in 1999 and a
National Association of Black Journalists
The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) is an organization of African-American journalists, students, and media professionals. Founded in 1975 in Washington, D.C., by 44 journalists, the NABJ's stated purpose is to provide quality p ...
Award (2002). He is also the recipient of four
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...
Awards and six regional Emmy Awards.
Pitts published a memoir, ''Step Out on Nothing: How Faith and Family Helped Me Conquer Life's Challenges'' on September 29, 2009.
See also
*
New Yorkers in journalism
New York City has been called the media capital of the world. Many journalists work in Manhattan, reporting about international, American, business, entertainment, and New York metropolitan area-related matters.
New Yorkers in journalism
A
...
References
Websites
Byron Pitts Biography on ABCNews.com
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pitts, Byron
1960 births
Living people
African-American journalists
American television journalists
Ohio Wesleyan University alumni
CBS News people
60 Minutes correspondents
21st-century African-American people
20th-century African-American people